bringing in native English speakers to teach English in Singapore

this is one of the big debates in singapore right now. apparently the standard of english has reached such appalling levels that the singapore government, known for its efficiency and ability to adapt to rapidly changing global conditions, has decided to swing into action and consider the possibility of recruiting native english speakers.

well, coming back from australia, where even their english is not the most perfect form of english, i can't help but feel that spoken english in singapore leaves much to be desired. even though the hardcore aussie accent is not the nicest sounding accent around, at least the pronounciation of words is more or less correct and the grammer is proper.

for singapore to become a truly globalised city, it is imperative that its citizens are able to speak proper english to communicate effectively with fellow english speakers from other parts of the world . one need not fake an accent when talking to americans, british or australians. so long as the pronounciation of words are correct and the grammatical structure sound, there should not be much difficulty in communicating.

however, the problem now is that people are not pronouncing words properly, not using proper grammer, and peppering their speech with mandarin, hokkien or malay words, hence compromising their ability to express themselves in proper english. in addition, sentences are punctuated needlessly with the ubiquitous "la", "leh", "lor", etc.... i find it grating to the ears especially when i hear it overseas. i mean...the question mark was invented for a reason. it is meant to be used, not to be substituted with some other singlish expression.

it would be sad if batches of students go through the rigorous education system here and come out not being able to command a decent standard of spoken english.

which brings me to the point about singlish. even though it exists in our community and is commonly used in the marketplace, hawker centres, among friends, it should just be accepted and not glorified or groomed to be our national identity or something to be proud of. singlish is a nicer sounding term for bad english. and thats what it really is. i'm not saying we should try to eradicate it. the problem now is that people are unable to code switch between singlish and proper english!

the worse part about trying to advocate the use of good english in this country is the small minded people who accuse you of "speaking with a potato in your mouth"

of course, taking away jobs from our local english teachers will not be the best thing to do. i guess the government could first start with hiring a couple of them, maybe one for each school. its not that cheap to bring them in anyway. apparently some advertisements have already been placed in the Guardian newspaper in the UK. in china, school children are being taught english by american and british teachers, and they have to learn the 2 different types of pronounciations. this certainly reflects the importance placed by the chinese government in creating a truly effectively bilingual population.